Well, its been a big week of news so far! Starting with the confirmation of the release date of March 1st, the details of the pre-order program and details of the subscription prices. If that is not enough, Trion also decided to stir the pot a bit with a little commercial:

So, why should WoW player’s even think of making the move to Rift? What will they see in Rift that they don’t see in WoW? I’ve seen this question asked a million times, from a million different blogs, forum posts and articles. For me, it comes down to one question:

Do you prefer Vanilla WoW over Current WoW?

If your answer is yes, then Rift may just be the game for you. Of course, its not quite as simple as that but that is a good starting point. Let’s take a look at what Rift offers over Blizzard‘s behemoth!

"Vanilla WoW": Oh, how I miss thee!

How do you like your world?

Gone are the days in which Azeroth was a busy world, filled with players running to and fro, completing quests and making the world alive. Now, most players sit in Iron Forge or Orgrimmar and wait for their next queue to pop. Rarely do player’s venture out into the world and when they do it is only to do very specific things. Gathering crafting mats and finishing a few daily quests are about the extent of player’s adventures into the outside world of Azeroth. Cataclysm has seen an upturn in open-world content because everyone wants to see the new areas but once that newness fades, rest assured that players will head back into the comfy confines of their capitol cities and wait for the next battleground or Random Dungeon Finder pop.

By contrast, Rift is full of life in the outside world. Players are running around everywhere. Completing quests, doing Rifts, fighting off invasions. The world of Telara is a busy place. Yes, it is less convenient than the WoW Dungeon Finder but it is certainly more full of life. Instances are still done but they are done the old-fashioned way and because so much of the content of Telara is found in the open-world, it is a much busier place. If you miss that from WoW, Rift is your game.

How do you like your server community?

I remember the old days of WoW. I knew everyone on the server. I fought with them in instances, I fought against them in battlegrounds and I ganked them in the open-world. It was a fun time. Rivalries and alliances were built on the backs of our community. I knew what players were good when I needed a tank in Upper Blackrock Spire, I knew what player not to invite when I needed a healer for Stratholme. I came across a Horde player in my grinding spot and I knew immediately whether he was going to be a tough fight or not. Those days are gone. The server community in WoW is almost non-existent. The cross-server Dungeon Finder was the final nail in that coffin. Now, you are typically matched up with four people you don’t even know for an instance. Compared to yesteryear the server community is a fractured mess of what it used to be.

There are cross-server PvP Warfronts in Rift (which I could do without!) but no cross-server Dungeon Finder. By its very nature, Rift promotes a server community. The Rift invasions require the server to work together to hold them back. In many cases, an entire zone can be over-run without the server working together. Over time, alliances will form, rivalries will be fought. Its just the way Rift works. If you miss that from WoW, Rift is your game.

How do you like your PvP?

I remember the days of Goon Squad taking over the boat from Menethil Harbor to Theramore Isles. I remember the insane fights in Blackrock Mountain. I remember trying to kill Azuregos while Horde streamed into the area to prevent the kill. Those days are gone as well. World PvP in Azeroth is dead. Blizzard has done everything they can to insure that. Guards are everywhere. Flying mounts insure that you don’t have to fight unless you have the advantage. Phasing insures that even when there are players out in the open-world, they may not even be able to see each other. The Random Dungeon Finder insures that no one is fighting outside of instances. World PvP has degenerated into the occasional gank while you are finishing up dailies or gathering crafting mats.

Oh, but in Rift the chance to World PvP is abundant. Because more players are running around, more opportunity exists for PvP fights. PvP happens constantly. Players who were attempting to close a Rift, break off to engage the opposing faction. Raid Rifts are a good source of loot and players will come from all over to get their share….and make sure you don’t get yours! World PvP is alive and well in Rift. If you miss that from WoW, Rift is your game.

What else do you like?

There are many other reasons to play Rift over WoW. Do you want to see a game in which Dynamic content can expand and take over a zone. In which you have to fight off massive bosses to gain back control of your zone? Rift has that. WoW does not.

Do you want to see a game in which you can be almost anything you can think of? A tank one second, a healer the next and DPS after that. WoW has that in Druid and Paladins. Rift has that everywhere. Do you want a game in which you can pick from multiple talent trees and build a character to your strengths? Rift has that and with a lot more control than WoW.

Do you want a game in which the graphics don’t look like they were made on Fisher Price computers? A game that not only has nice graphics but, in most cases, can support 150+ players and multiple mobs fighting at once? If you think WoW has that, I encourage you to jump into a Tol Barad or Wintergrasp (edited: I originally typed Winterspring, talking about Vanilla WoW dredged up some memories!!) fight sometime! Rift does have that and the performance is getting better with each patch.

Rift is really bad downloads ever day some much lag. WoW is very smooth. Rift is very choppy. and yea cata does get boring after time. but when MoP comes out it will be a little buggy but more fun. but i think WoW is better then Rift.

Looks cool, but seriously, stop trying to bring back “WoW content and change it around.” Do your own thing, try and do what other games havent done. If this is going to be another WoW Vani attempt or Clone then fuck it.

The point of this post wasnt to compare the two games but to bring to light the good aspects in the way of community and open world relevance that rift is offering… And then drawing on experiences from WoW vanilla to support the concepts.. duuh 😉

I played Everquest for seven years. When EQ2 released, i didnt like it and instead turned to WoW. For the last 5 years I had been a dedicated WoW player. After playing one BETA session of RIFT, I shut down my accounts, pieced and parted them out and bought the digital preorder collectors edition for RIFT. In that 4 day span of a BETA I managed to find everything I wanted in an MMO in the lands of Telara. Hell with cataclysm, give me more RIFT.

Can you avoid PVP? I’ve done a few RIFT betas but never got over level 8-10 due to time constraints on my end. I haven’t encountered the opposite faction. I have no real love of PVP – I’ll do it if I have to but it makes me grumpy and more likely to leave. (See also: my Aion account that lasted all of two months.)

As long as you play on a PvE server, you can avoid PvP. I will warn you, however, that they are still working out the bugs in the flagging system. Meaning, you sometimes get PvP-flagged accidentally in the beta, even on a PvE server. As soon as they work those out the PvE server will be safe from folks like me ganking you! 🙂

Thanks for the fast reply. It’s good to know that RIFT is catering to both crowds.

Betas are for bugs (and the squishing of), so I don’t really base my expectations of a game based on that. Getting accidentally flagged in beta won’t ruin my experience of the game. I don’t throw temper tantrums. 🙂

Hmm. Good article, but the way to sell something is not to bash the competition, especially when the competition is the market leader MMO of all time.

I agree with the content, but surely there are better ways to promote Rift. Seeing this kind of article just makes me want to cringe and wonder WTF you’d purposefuly alienate people with sand box tactics.

Actually the BEST way to be heard IS to bash the MMO leader, like they did in their advertisements, assuming you have the Game to back it up. And most people believe they already do.
It was a brilliant idea to market their game, Gets the people talking.

Also the fact it is similar to wow of 5 years ago would be more of a turn off. Having read syncaines, keens, wolfsheads and now your pieces I think this will be one il pick up on a sale further down the line if at all.

why fanboyish? He just wrote his opinion about both games, dictated by his feelings.
WOW has been the king for many years, but it´s clearly obvious for hardcore and casuals (just as myself) that wow has lost the magic, the one it once made you quickly log in excited in seach of new adventures. That´s over.. as he well says, it´s all about quieing, farming and whatnot.
RIFT, on the other hand is a new and open world,full of promises, full of possible fun and excitement; if all goes well ofc.
Let´s hope the best for RIFT.

I should hope wow is more polished it’s 5 years old with 3 full expansions.. That’s the dumbest comment I’ve ever read..and hey here’s a thought why don’t you create a time travel device an go back in time and play wow and launch and then comment in polish… And please don’t buy this game.. The last thing our community needs is cry babies like you wanting trion to hand out epics like candy for doing nothing more the standing in a major city and queing and then trolling while you wait!! But srsly please don’t buy it… Dip s**t

Not to even get started on the core concept of your post is contradictory in nature…. You say blah just a wow clone blah… And yet your next comment is you will tank and the wow jumpers will be back, which suggest you are saying rift should more like wow “the better game” and yet you criticize it for being a wow clone not a sentence ago….hmmm…but what more can I really expect from people like you? People like you are the reason this genre is the way it is now, and no I shall not pity you.. You are a virus and you need to go away…kthxbye

Everything sounds up my alley except for the world PvP, blargh. But most people I would play with enjoy that sort of thing, so I’m stuck with it either way. Plus, whenever I’ve made WoW alts on a PvE server, it always felt like I was… not cheating, but just… almost like I was playing in a bubble or something. I’ll take the world PvP and deal with it, I guess. Anyway…

“A tank one second, a healer the next and DPS after that. WoW has that in Druid and Paladins. Rift has that everywhere.”

This is not true. There is a lot of variety with Rift’s soul system, but there is no class like a Druid or paladin from WoW that can fill any role. Warriors can’t be healers, rogues can’t be tanks or healers, mages can’t be tanks (they can potentially be healers) and clerics can’t be tanks. Everyone can DPS, sure, but no one class can be tank, healer AND DPS in Rift.

Incorrect. Rogues can tank (Riftstalker) and heal (Bard). Clerics can tank (justicar) and ranged dps (multiple souls) and melee dps (Shaman and Druid). Warriors can tank and dps but have no real healer. Mages can heal and dps but have no real tank.

I am a pretty inexperienced Gamer when it gets to Game-style variety, as I have only played WoW for the past 5 years. But compared to WoW, Rift has various key aspects that I miss and loved about Vanilla WoW, World PvP especially.

As you said, the communities are not what they used to be. At all. Which contributed a lot to the quality of Guilds. With Rift I’d like to see the former type of Guilds – REAL guilds, where people know each other, know how to play the game with each other – not those ” groups” of strangers that have a “kick-ass” name and run Dungeons and Raids just for the heck of it.

The rifts within Rift, in my opinion, represent a major breakthrough in gaming communities, as it will lead to people actually playing together, and not just for themselves & their own sake.

Of course, I expect there to be downsides to Rift as well, but every game has it’s pros and cons. This is why I am really excited about what will become of Rift in the future. learn through change. 🙂

World PvP FTW!

-Merxxer, former level 80 Shaman of the Horde.

P.s: I love WoW. As flawed as it may be, I love it. It introduced me to the MMORPG world, set great examples, and gave me the opportunity to kill thousands of gnomes. 🙂

I will play both, we are well past the era of only one MMO at a time, WoW has aspects I love (x-realm dungeons are great for dungeon crawlers like me, pop on any char, get a dungeon at any level, 20 mins or so easy relaxing 🙂 )

Having said that, I do miss vanilla instancing, travelling to the stone and knowing players on your realm. I have loved the rift betas so far, so will be getting it to play between pugging in WoW

Try playing on Gurubashi! Not only do we have all the issues with community mentioned in this thread, but we also have a Brazilian takeover. Sometimes the trade channel is NOTHING but Portuguese and heaven forbid that one of us who was on the server from way before WoW became available there should say anything about it.

[…] friends who just won’t try Rift? Have them hop over to HorRIFTic Intentions and check out Why Should a WoW Player Give Rift a Shot?Friday Jan 7Another interesting lore piece came out today at MMORPG, The Righteous Justicar!Also, […]

Like this is an awesome comment why to pick Rift over wow. I havent been a beta tester my self but after what i’ve read from Trion and beta tester this game will be fucking mazing. And fuck yeah i miss old school pvp i miss playing with all my fellas from the realm to nuke down a World boss. But most of all i miss World Pvp.. Blizzard has ruined all of what we knew of vanilla and i’m sure if we ask loads of vanilla players 8/10 of them is gonns say vanilla were the best….

1) I do think Rift will be cooler than WoW. Constant dynamic world events and more ‘hustle and bustle’ making the areas you work in more alive. Definitely cool.

2) I find it hilarious how you say WoW is alive a bit now because of the newness and shiny factor. And then not a second after you claim that RIFT, which is in beta stages, doesnt suffer from that.

You have no clue. Right now, RIFT in it’s entirety is a shiny factor. Everything is new and special. You have no idea how it will turn out once the retail’s been around for a while.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing against RIFT or for WoW, and I do think the mechanics will keep people running out and about more.

But honestly, when you’re right and done, the grind of fighting off invasion after invasion (which are made up of the same forces pretty much every time, so far) I can imagine someone might get tired of it.

I genuinely hope Trion finds a way to keep the game alive and interested, keep people hooked. Not make it feel like a grind. I have high hopes for RIFT and the beta I played was exceptionally good. Let’s hope it sticks 🙂

2. WoW is alive because of new content. Rift is alive in beta because of newness and the fact that open world content is relevant and needed to progress. In WoW that is not the case. The RDF killed that. Why go out in the open world and do quests when I can level faster and with better rewards by sitting in the cities and queueing?

Sure invasions will get tiring after awhile, as all content does eventually. In WoW you have dungeons, battlegrounds, daily quests and raids to keep you busy. In Rift, you have all of that plus Rifts and invasions. Everything gets tiring after awhile but as long as Rift can continue adding new and fresh content, it will be fine.

At the same time, if fighting off invasions gets tiring then the invasions get a foothold and grow to be a bigger problem. This in turn encourages more people to come help stomp it down again.

So while you might personally get tired of invasions now and then and decide to do something else for a while, it’s still a pretty safe bet that there will be a lot of people in each zone. And as was stated in the blog, a bigger invasion will draw players of the opposing faction.

In that case, you might be tired of fighting off invasions, but will you also be tired of making life difficult for players that aren’t? Especially when it’s with the knowledge that their rift is only going to get even more uncontrollable as you kill them?

Or maybe you want to help defend your own factions rift-fighters by taking on the other faction as they come to try and stop yours.

One key thing I noticed in Rift beta was polish. While not the level of polish of a 6 year old+ game like WoW unlike many Betas, I never crashed the client.

My favorite mmo was SWG for crafting of items that had actual worth and for less strict class structure.

While I can not say if Endgame crafting in Rift will end up likened to WoW’s only gem cutting and enchants actually mattering, I did notice that my crafted weapons were actually better than the random quest rewards.

Also I found the concept of Soul system to be less restrictive than having to reroll another toon just to try out a Bard or a Ranger.
This lets me invest more myself into my character a lot more without the fear he will be replaced by a new main of the system subclass (war,rog,mag,priest)

I was pleased to find so many things that I prefer in a mmo for once instead of just accepting that the good outweighed the bad.

While most players might not see Rift as “THE NEXT GENERATION OF MMOS!” but it is still a push forward.

The game isn’t requiring us to use 3d glasses or the powerglove or even that crazy camera motion pet animal game what’macallit.

In my opinion Rift somewhat mimics what WoW did by taking good parts of already released games and merging them.

I’m sure there is a write-up of the different systems stitched into Rift’s quilt somewhere on the interwebs.

I like rift because of the ability to customize your character – what has been done in Cataclysm (forced one tree focus) is like MMO for dummies.
I don’t like two things tho: one is replayability for alts: in WoW (or Warhammer for example) you can level in multiple zones, here you are forced to do the same quests again. Yes, two characters can fill all your needs, but even playing mage will alwyas be different than playing a warrior, even one using spell-like abilities.
Second thing is poor story – WoW made me really interested in its lore – I’ve spent many hours reading WoWWiki about Sylvanas, Arthas or Old Gods – here we have generic Bad Guy who wants to destroy a world and we are chosen of gods (as Guardians) going to stop him… Yuck, smells like B-grade fantasy to me

you have no idea what RIFT is about if you say that is all about one big bad guy =)
Cause wow story, although it has very good points,it eventually become cheesy, predictible- and the worst: repetitive.

Dont forget Blizzards had years to put there stories together (Warcraft 1, 2, 3 plus expansions) now Wow and expansions. Rift is the first part in a long line fo stories yet to come. Would you rather go back and read an old book series you’ve read a hundred times or buy a new book of a new series.?

I’ve been playing wow a long time and have seen the changes made, I’m getting so tired of doing boring dailies. I hope Rift gives players at cap lvl more to do than simple dailies and grind for weeks to get gear thats going to be out dated on the next patch.

When I saw Rift I thought it looked promising, but when I saw “this is not Azeroth” I thought they have balls and is exactly what I look for in a company. Not scared of sticking there neck out! I love that and thats why I’m gonna get Rift on Pre-order!

Any up-and-coming fantasy MMO is going to get compared to WoW. Warhammer did too. It’s just how it is. WoW has claimed its place in the fantasy MMO niche, and any game threatening to topple (or at the very least join) WoW by squeezing into WoW’s throne is going to have to face the comparisons, for better or worse. So no complaints that it is getting compared to WoW. That’s like being mad that a new musical artist is compared to the talent or style of some other more famous artist. If you want to play with the big dogs, prepare for a little shoving.

That being said, graphics are hands-down superior to WoW. The class system and customization is lightyears ahead of WoW as well; and if they can manage to keep it balanced without getting tedious or boring, start praying, Blizzard, because this game could be coming for your moneymaker. The inclusion of multiple pet classes (ranged, melee, and caster), multiple tanking options, tons of healing options, multiple stealth-related options, and more, this game goes far beyond WoW’s simplistic roles. You could have a DPS/healer, a tank with a pet, a ranged stealth class, etc., and that’s not even scratching the surface.

Now I do like that WoW turns traditional fantasy on its head (orcs are honor-bound and have morals, elves are magic addicts, dark elves are tree-hugging hippies, minotaurs are peaceful native nomads, trolls be rastafarian mon, and goblins are clever entrepreneurs).

What I like about the lore in Rift is that there is no “bad guy” faction to play. Instead of Good vs. Evil, or Man vs. Orc, it’s Faith vs. Humanism.

The Guardians are the ones who are saving the world from the rifts because they feel the gods chose them for this task.

The Defiants are the people who believe that the gods are the reason for the rifts or at the very least not helping to save the world from the rifts. The Defiants, in feeling abandoned or betrayed by the gods, are simply people striving to save the world through human endeavor. Humanists to the core. The assumed “good guys” (the Guardians) are at war with the Defiants simply because they feel what the Defiants are doing is blasphemy and sacrilege. To be honest, that level of intolerance to me makes them the bad guys, lol.

This game’s lore makes for a lovely faction split: no one side is “evil”. Both want to save the world in their own ways, and there is a believability, a very human quality, to the reasoning of both sides.

I’ve been playing WoW since launch (A few patches after, actually. Zul’Gurub I think)

A few days ago, I found a beta invite in my mailbox, to the beta 4 event of Rift. I figured I’d check it out, since I was actually bored with WoW at that time. All it was, like it says above, was waiting for the next queue.

The moment I entered Rift, I was flabbergasted. The intro zones were amazing, exciting, and the world was constantly dynamic. The only downside was the constant bashing and counterbashing in general chat about WoW vs. Rift.

I wish we could just drop it, they’re two different games. I wish WoW the best, but I’m breaking the relationship between the WoW team and myself, and I’m leaving for a new game.

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Seriously how can you compare current wow to Rift? some of the things you mention like “people no longer run around in wow and they do in rift” are just stupid since of course there will be a lot of people running around in rift, is just released so no one is maxed level but how can you guarantee that when yo do reach max lvl there still will be people running around?. Don’t get me wrong I will give RIFT a try but I think your comparisons are way of the mark and yo need to actually look at things once you have reached max lvl and hove done most of the things rift has to offer, before you can give an accurate comparison.

“Cataclysm has seen an upturn in open-world content because everyone wants to see the new areas but once that newness fades, rest assured that players will head back into the comfy confines of their capitol cities…”

I don’t know if I will play Rift, other things to do etc. But this statement rings true.

I unsubbed from WoW when patch 4.0 because I didn’t like the class changes (to druid and paladin in particular). I re-subbed last month to see the new content and lasted a week before I unsubbed again.

I ran around on my old chars a bit and started a couple of new characters and what I found is that the world is already empty. Trying to get a random group through Deadmines is torture. The phasing is a PITA. What really annoyed me was how many old bugs still exist (stuck in combat, mobs buried in terrain etc).

Another thing i dislike is the fact of only 6 races…. and out of the 6 races the 3-4 look the same, no big difference between them, if they wont improve the armor RIFT will fail big time (keeping in mind that GuildWars 2 is not far and the races , weapons and armors are terrific!)

I am playing RIFT just cause i am bored of 5 years WoW, i was hoping that cataclysm expansion would refresh the game but it didn’t it was just a raiding expansion.

Most players that will play RIFT will be coming from WoW and that’s cause WoW started being boring, they want something cool like WoW, because remember, [B]you are playing a fantasy game – fantastic gear is what matches with it[/B]

Screenshot of the pool:
[img]http://puu.sh/181n[/img]

I hope TRION will take the armor design into SERIOUS consideration, i do not want to play a game that will surely fail 😛 (if not correctly improve)

Funny, people said exactly the same thing “This is far better than WoW” in Aion, and see what happened, this game will not be any different. Rift launches => bugs are too much to handle = People give up on it => servers starting to crumble and everyone goes back to WoW. Yes I’ve played WoW 6 years and I’m fed up with it, nowadays I only play it to kill some time till Kotor hits the shelves. Been checking Rift vids, screens,articles and got to say, it seems too boring maybe I’ll try a trial whenever it comes.

i can understand why you might advertise rift as being better than wow in those specific instances. However, Rift is a new game where people are currently running around leveling. who is to say that it will be the same a year from now. Maybe in a year, people will just be sitting in the home cities just like how wow is now. Or maybe people will get tired of trying to make up groups from their own servers and push the developer into a multi server dungeon ques like wow. I myself find wow pretty boring because of how easy it is now. I enjoyed vanilla but that is because back then, not many people knew how to min max, play their class, and just ran around enjoying the actual world of warcraft. Right now, there are no cookie-cuttre builds and a lot of the content is and build are still up for debate. Over time, i feel like Rift will just become another mmo that had a good start because it is new and different from wow.

I currently play WOW , have being on and off for 4 years now , why you may ask , it gets boring real fast , and all i do is re roll another toon – do the same shit day in day out. Look at CATA you got to 85 so fast , you did all the dailys , maybe pvped or raided , but ffs , is was a short expansion so far , yes the new patch , will bring more dailys more crappy achivements and 2 instances . I AGREE with a lot of people that these cross realm pugs sux – so many stupid people and people crying over a drop they did or didnt receive.

whilst i may not cancel wow , ive being longing , yearning for a new REFRESHING GAME to come and IT HAS ARRIVED . guys please give it a go before bashing it . ( I tried to play anion – but not my cup of tea – too much grinding )

People keep saying WoW copy! Wow copy! Guess what. WoW copied a lot of ideas from other mmo’s so there isn’t an excuse. Besides that I love the RIFT starter zones, where you can join groups to down rifts. Its got better graphics and thus far, it seems to be playing great. Level 20 at the moment. Only thing is I would like it if they allowed 3rd party addons.

I gotta say I am an original fanboy of WoW and I am still a fan. However, I fell in love with the Classic Vanilla and while enjoying many of the changes and new content have seen the same repetitive tasks that we are left with after the questing is done and the level accomplished.
In the little time I have been in RIFT. (Took a good friend weeks to get me to try it) I decided what the heck why not, worst case scenario I buy a bad game.

First thing, the game ran flawless with no problems. The first difference you see of course as prementioned is the graphics difference between WoW. I had lost hope for decent graphics on an MMO (half successful MMO) and RIFT definately restored that confidence.

As far as the initial feel for controls, all ideal if your a wow player. Was very easy to get comfortable on all controls, adapted relatively quick.

Brings back some of that old WoW excitement I’ve been looking for.

of course, the first time I played about 30 minutes in the server said it was going down for a quick update. Now, from past experience when Blizz said that I was expecting hours. The server was up at 35 minutes, again.. Impressive because an expectation was set and met.

Without getting flak if I am incorrect, for I am not claiming 100% certainty but the only downside I’ve heard so far is that there are not addons like there are with WoW. Not a big deal, the game seems to have integrated everything I needed immediately, however we will see as the playtime increases and more content is discovered.

Ill attempt to update this log again after playing it for a month or two and can give more information to get some more players in RIFT!

If there are any questions you have about the game, post em definitely (please look prior to see if has been asked and answered to avoid trolling)

I have been enjoying Rift for the last several weeks and am lovin it!! I played WOW on again and off again for longer than I want to admit. After a while it just got boring. They tried to inject newness (if that is a word) but it was the same ole, same ole. I find Rift creative and full of imagination and i love exploring. Sure the platform is similar to, but to say it is a clone of WOW is not true at all. Finally, we should all remember it is a new game and they will continue to improve where it is needed. We need to have fun and be patient. I say to al those that are complaining, “quite your griping and start grinding!” lol

i played wow for over 8 years, on and off for maybe a total of 4 years of play time but yah needless to say i am one of alot of people who miss the vanilla days. after reading this i’ll be picking up my copy of rift in a couple weeks >.< gotta wait to get paid.

One thing RIFT does not have over WOW is graphics that will work in a moderate system. While it is generally good to have great graphics, if they don’t support the game, then they are just eye candy. I am planning to upgrade my vid card, but until then I might run around Azeroth a big longer.

Where to begin, I look at Rift as the next logical step in MMO’s. The content is open, not “cliquish” like wow. See a rift, walk up to it and enter public party or raid. Walk up on a quest event happening and you too get to finish the quest, OMG i dont have to wait for a respawn?? NO. No spawn fighting.

As far as the graphics, 3 screen eyefinity (1050) everything maxxed with a AMD6970 easy 60fps. Like i said, the evolution of the MMO. What Blizzard has to realize is that a percentage of people that play MMO’s are 21-40 year olds with JOBS and can afford upgrading their PC’s. Leave the kiddies on wow, let the adults evolve. even if the percentage is 25% that can play Rift on their PC that is still 4,000,000 potential subscribers… PLENTY MORE THAN WOW IN ITS FIRST YEAR.

I used to play WoW, Wotlk improved some aspects, dimmed others, and Cata is garbage. Nothing but catering to elitist jerks, cliques and purists. The BETA was full of nothing but the top guilds world wide, so who do you think would have downed world firsts? the guilds that knew the exploits and the fights. Rinse repeat… I wonder if they (blizzard) learned from that f-up.

Blizzard got 3 years from me, but I evolved, woke up and saw the light. To get off the ship before it went under.

Ironically for me one of the things that destroyed real world pvp was the war bear mount whatnot after they made all the achievements for killing off the rival factions Boss’s. But perhaps that was actually a last dying breath of folks at Blizzard trying to amp up the game. Real world PVP owns and if you don’t like it please hop onto a comfy PVE server. All PVP! Rift OWNS!

I have always wondered what WoW Vanilla was like. I new that it was definitely more alive than current WoW and the PvP wasn’t a shitfest of heirlooms.. even though maybe twinks (not sure why they called em twinks >_>).

I came from WoW to RIFT because I already knew WoW was past its glory days. Those days died completely when the Lich King fell. Well.. I wont be missing the glory days of RIFT.

RIFT does look much better than WoW, but I dont even mind WoW graphics.. I can still get some amazing scenery screenshots within Azeroth and Outland. xD

I still play WoW often when my other friends are on trying to lvl their new characters.. And I wont pressure them into Rift… everyone HATES a convert. Lol.

Even though im slowly moving over into Rift… I swear to God Almighty that if Trion comes out with a Blood Elf-looking race.. with their Highschool Prep Asshole looks… Im gone.. Lol. seriously
High Elves dont necessarily look like em, (even though they are the same race) Just dont make them look like Blood elves. (pfft.. “Blood Elves”… like they think thats cool or something >_< lol)